The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 43, 1670-1700: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 43, 1670-1700: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
If on a comparison of the grammar and dictions of these two languages
it is found that they originate from one and the same tongue, I would
be so bold as to say that the Indians of Philipinas originate from
the Indians of South America, and that the language of the latter is
the parent language of which all the languages of these islands are
dialects. Many will consider this a paradox, for the Malays being
so near it would appear that the Filipinos must have originated from
them, as our authors have generally believed. I cannot deny that these
islands could have been easily settled by the Malays; but how shall
we account for the peopling of the islands of Palaos and Marianas
which are more than three hundred leguas distant? Where shall we get
at those who settled the islands of San Duisk and Otayti, which are
two thousand leguas from Philipinas? All these people have the same
language, the same features, the same customs, and consequently, the
same origin as our Indians. It is impossible that people should go
from Philipinas to people those lands, for the east wind dominates
constantly throughout the torrid zone, and that wind blowing head
on would not permit the ship to sail to those islands. Rather on the
contrary we must believe that the inhabitants of all the islands of
the South Sea came from the Orient with wind astern as we have seen
happen to the Indians of Palaos, [40] who have come to our Philipinas
several times driven by the wind, and the east winds have not allowed
them to return to their land. Let us suppose that if then these islands
were not peopled, those Indians would have been the first settlers. We
do not know whether our Indians by a like accident, have been carried
by the winds to the Oriental islands. On the contrary we believe the
opposite, since at times the best pilots cannot make that navigation,
and return without finding the islands whither they were sailing,
as it is necessary to take a high latitude for that voyage. On this
head we must seek the easiest solution, namely, that the settlers came
from the east from island to island. Consequently, the most eastern
land where the Tagálog language is found must be the country whence
our Indians originate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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